Effects of different designs of pressure vessels on efficiency and energy consumption of reverse osmosis systems

One of the cost-effective methods of water purification is reverse osmosis. In the present work, the effect of pressure vessels with different numbers of membranes in two types of reverse osmosis system design is investigated. Simulation results showed that pressure vessels with more membranes have lower energy consumption and higher efficiency in different simple and hybrid designs of reverse osmosis systems. Findings showed that the first design performs better in terms of energy consumption and efficiency than the second design. The study also showed that maximum efficiency was achieved using the first design of the hybrid two-stage brackish water reverse osmosis system. The least efficient system was the hybrid single-stage seawater reverse osmosis system.